As the value and use of information increases, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to these individuals and businesses is to use information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes, thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
In today's business environment, video conferences provide the ability for persons at different locations to communicate without the need to travel to a common location to attend a meeting. A video conference which allows communication between multiple locations in a single video conference is referred to as a multi-point video conference. A multi-point video conferencing system may be thought of as one or more information handling systems supporting multi-point video conferences.
In a typical multi-point video conferencing system, each participating location has a video conference terminal. Video conference terminals typically are equipped with video cameras, video displays, audio microphones and audio speakers. This equipment allows the video conference participants to see and speak with each other, as though they were present at a single conference table in a single room. In addition, the video cameras and displays allow a participant to present materials of interest to the other participants, such as documents and physical objects, as though making a live, personal presentation. Each video conference terminal may be observed by one or more participants at the participating location.
Some video conferencing systems display a single image of a single participant (usually the person currently speaking) to the other participants. Other video conferencing systems provide a “split screen” presentation with multiple display windows on a single screen, where each display window displays an image of a different participant. Such an implementation allows participating locations without specialized video conferencing display equipment to use a standard computer monitor for displaying the images. Still other video conferencing systems allow multiple images to be presented on multiple screens, which may require specialized video display equipment.
Preferably, a multi-point video conference provides every participating location with access to all available speech, video and data coming from all other participating locations. However, “continuous-presence” multi-point conferencing is usually not feasible because it requires bandwidth for linking each participating location to every other participating location. Real-time audio and video data streams require tremendous bandwidth to communicate quality, synchronized sound and images from one location to another. In a multi-point video conference, bandwidth requirements are even larger, particularly when multiple participants are to be displayed requiring processing of multiple video streams. The more video streams that must be processed, the higher the bandwidth required to achieve quality sound and images ( e.g. good frame rate, large enough frame size, etc. ). Bandwidth allocation and management for a video conference directly affects the quality of the participants' experience.
Fast switching provides an alternative to continuous presence. Video and data information are provided selectively using criteria for determining which participating locations should be displayed and which should be heard. Selection can be made by a human facilitator of the video conference or fully automatically.
In video conferencing systems that display a single image, several schemes are used to determine which participating location's image should be displayed. One technique is to use the audio volume to decide which one image to display (i.e., the loudest wins). Another technique involves a “talker and graphic contention resolution process” to display only one talker's (participating location's) image based upon an algorithm which selects only one talker and only one graphic image. However, single image displays are less effective in highly interactive conferences than they are in a lecture-style video conference.
A technique applicable for displaying either a single image or multiple images of participating locations includes using an audio signal detection method at the audio input device (microphone) to decide whether to send video or not based on presence of an audio signal. However, this technique has shortcomings in terms of fairness; for example, the speaker that speaks the most often can monopolize a portion or all of the video display (as well as the bandwidth) for the conference, allowing other participants little opportunity to be seen. Furthermore, a resolution process is necessary to determine which speakers are to be displayed when more audio signals than display windows exist. Often the resolution process involves the “loudest wins” technique described above.
What is needed is a solution that provides the ability to manage bandwidth allocated and images presented in multiple display windows for a multi-point video conference. The solution should provide fair coverage of all participating locations in an interactive discussion and minimize the bandwidth necessary to conduct the video conference. The solution should also maintain high quality, synchronized sound and images. Preferably, the solution should not require specialized equipment at each participating location to view images for the video conference.